South Florida Housing Market Update [November 2020]

In this month's episode, Andy Mandel with REMAX ADVISORS will break down the latest housing numbers in our area and share what it means for buyers and sellers.

Hey, it's Andy with the Mandel Team at RE/MAX, and I'm here to bring you, your November, 2020 housing market update. As always for the purposes of this video, we're gonna be talking about single family homes only, no townhouses, no condos in Boca, Parkland and Coral Springs. Those are the areas where our team does the predominant amount of our business.

When we talk about Boca, we're not talking about 55 and over communities and we're not talking about country clubs, those are all different markets entirely so are we focusing on single family homes only in Boca, Parkland and Coral Springs.

When we do these videos, we like to give you the leading indicators to show you where the real estate market is headed, not where it's been. So when we talk about closed sale price, that's really indicative of what happened 30, 60, sometimes even 90 days ago. We're here to give you the leading indicators, show you where the housing market is headed, so you can make an informed decision for you and your families.

The first step we like to look at, is the number of new homes coming on the market. Between Boca, Parkland and Coral Springs, this is the third month in a row, we're actually seeing an increase of about 13% of new homes coming on the market compared to November of 2019. We're seeing more homes finally start to hit the market, we've had a lot less inventory the year over year, basically this whole year. That's a good thing, we're starting to have more options to choose from, but the number of homes going pending, going under contract and coming off the market, that's up 33%. So yes, more homes on the market but way more homes are selling and coming off the market. Homes are selling very, very quickly, that leads us to our next stat which is the median days for a home to sell.

We're looking at about two weeks as the median days on market, that's down 60%. So way fewer, same way, shorter time for homes to sell, I'm saying two weeks, but it really feels like in a matter of 24 to 48 hours for really well-priced updated properties in good neighborhoods they're selling incredibly quickly. It's very important that you're doing everything you need to do as a buyer and as a seller to prepare for a quick sale.

The last step we like to look at is the number of months supply of inventory. What this stat means is that, if no more homes were to come on the market, no one else decides to sell their house, how many months would it take for every home on the market to sell at the current pace of sales? Anything less than six months is considered a sellers market, anything more than six months is considered a buyer's market. And right now on average, we're 2.16 months of inventory that's basically where we've been the whole year, right around the low twos, that's a very strong sellers market.

There's really not a lot of inventory and like I said, what is on the market is getting snapped up very quickly if it's in half decent condition and price correctly. So what does this mean for you, if you were a buyer? Well you really gotta be ready to buy, this means you have to be fully pre-approved, you gotta make sure you're doing everything on your end upfront, so that you can write an offer right away when you find the right house and you can write a strong offer.

What we're recommending is don't just go to one of the big banks and let them pull your credit and get a pre-qualification letter, speak to one of our trusted lenders, get a full underwriting pre-approval, what we're doing with our buyers is we're making sure the underwriter, the person who's actually making the decision on the file is looking at all the stuff they need, so you can basically write a cash offer because you know that your mortgage has been approved already.

That's helping our offers get stand out and get them accepted when there's seven, eight, nine offers on any given property in just 24 or 48 hours. What does this mean for you if you're a seller? Well, there's almost never been a better time to sell your property, homes are selling for record prices, they're selling in a record short amount of time, and it's a good time to be a seller, you're getting a lot of offers, there's a lot of strong well-qualified buyers to choose from. People are moving from all over the country, now that everyone can work from home, they're not tied to any specific area.

A lot of people are flocking to South Florida because we have no state income tax and it's just a great place to live weather-wise. So we're getting a lot of people coming down here, it's very strong buyer demand. Homes are selling at record prices, it is a great time to be a seller, just got to put together a game plan ahead of time to know where you're going, so you can not be homeless and we can help you with that too, we do this all the time, we help people sell and buy.

So thanks for tuning in, to our November, 2020 housing market update, if you have any questions about the real estate market or if you're looking to move to South Florida, give me a call, shoot me a text, send me an email. However you wanna communicate, we got your back and moving to South Florida.